


Kerning, Clickbait, and the Top Ten Songs about Masturbation

by unicornsandbutane



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-07 20:56:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12849351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornsandbutane/pseuds/unicornsandbutane
Summary: Perhaps the strangest thing about Hux's flat mate Kylo is that he prints out and magnets to the fridge things he sees on the internet and wants to share with Hux.





	Kerning, Clickbait, and the Top Ten Songs about Masturbation

**Author's Note:**

> For youdidnotseeme on tumblr. Hope you enjoy~

"Kerning, Clickbait, and the Top Ten Songs about Masturbation" 

Armitage Hux may have had the vague sense that he was perhaps not the easiest man with whom to share a two bedroom apartment. He wasn't noisy, and he certainly wasn't messy, but he had a particular affect about himself that the wrong sort of person might find abrasive. Domineering. Demanding. He'd even been accused of being a /nag/. Nevertheless, despite numerous room mate failures, he'd finally found someone with whom to share the rent who thus far hadn't taken to holing up in his room, avoiding Hux's waking hours like a beaten child, appearing only like a ghost coming and going from work until the termination of their lease. This person, he supposed, was made of stronger stuff than that, with an absolutely unrivaled obstinacy. Of course this led to some pettiness, but he also seemed to have an almost preternatural sense for when Hux had had a terrible day and needed to stew alone for a few hours before engaging in any sort of human contact. At just about the right time, on these occasions, Kylo Ren would emerge from his room and ask if Hux wanted help with dinner. It wasn't that they always ate together. And perhaps it should grate on Hux that Kylo assumed Hux would share his groceries on these occasions. But somehow, Kylo knew when Hux felt frustrated, ignored, or defeated, and would cut vegetables in relative silence behind him, letting Hux vent about his incompetent colleagues, his project supervisor who utterly lacked vision, even the horrible bus commuters with whom he'd been forced to share 45 minutes to work and back. It was a good arrangement, even if Kylo had his own... quirks.

Kylo Ren might not have realized he wasn't the easiest man to live with, either. He habitually left his socks and underwear on the bathroom floor after a shower, and seemed morally opposed to turning off a light as he exited a room. He played music and internet videos extremely loudly, despite owning a rather nice set of noise-canceling headphones-- he claimed they pinched his ears, and Hux bit back any comments about those ears he may have had. He didn't seem at all aware of how much cleaning Hux did to keep them from living in squalor, and whenever he went to the grocery store he would come back with bullshit like toaster waffles and whey protein without sparing a thought for things like milk, eggs, bread, mayonnaise-- things that they both used. Then there were the things Kylo did that weren't /flaws/ so much as they were /oddities/. He had a gym membership, and spent an hour there at least 5 times a week, but he also spent a few hours weekly watching yoga videos online, taking up the entirety of the living room with his mat and accessories, and he would froth into a boiling rage if this ritual was disturbed by Hux, say, turning on the television, or attempting to vacuum around him. He had a vast collection of reportedly rare figurines from classic sci-fi franchises, and even some genuine movie props. Hux did not know how much Kylo spent on these, and had learned not to ask after how petulant it had made the man the last time he commented on how many boxes arrived from eBay and Amazon. And, most idiosyncratic of all perhaps: when Kylo wanted to share with Hux an article or image he'd seen online, he didn't simply text Hux the link like a normal human being. No, he would /print it out/ at work and affix it to their fridge with a magnet. Sometimes there'd be scrawled commentary, but usually not, leaving Hux to guess at why Kylo had wanted Hux to see whatever it was. So, when he came home with an armload of groceries (butter, toilet roll, coffee, which he fully expected Kylo to use and never thank him for) and set his shopping down on the counter by the refrigerator, he wasn't totally surprised to see a few sheets of paper folded together and adhered to the fridge by use of a Deadpool magnet. He was mildly amused to see that Kylo had written "from dickhole" on the overleaf. "Well that's a fair cop," Hux muttered to himself, pulling the papers free and unfolding them. A spike of cold fear shot through him as he read the header. 

It was actually from /clickhole/, and it was just Kylo's cramped handwriting that made it seem like a self-deprecating analysis. It was seven pages long, containing both color images and sidebar ads, and it was a list-style article entitled, "The Top Ten Songs that are Totally about Masturbation". Hux blinked at it. This wasn't the usual fare for the things Kylo shared with him. "The Signs as Lush Bath Products" with the scribbled comments 'what?' and then 'nvm you totally are Unicorn Horn. And I'm Lord of Misrule', that would be expected. A news article about a newly discovered species of katydid that just said 'neat', that would be fine. But this? What did Kylo mean by it? Was he telling Hux in an extremely roundabout fashion that he could hear Hux wanking?

He stood staring at the first page, unseeing, going through possible scenarios in which he could bring this up with the least amount of awkwardness, and then flipped through the pages to see if Kylo had written in any more clues. Coming up with nothing, he shoved the butter into the fridge and grabbed a beer, leaving the rest of his shopping abandoned on the counter.

When Kylo came home, Hux was in his room, purposefully avoiding having any conversation about the article. He'd shoved it into the drawer of his bedside table, but the Helvetica headings haunted him. "Turning Japanese" by the Vapors. "Fingers" by Pink. Obviously, "I Touch Myself" by the DeVinyls. He'd never even heard most of these songs, but now he knew they were 'totally about masturbation'. What was he supposed to do with this knowledge? What had Kylo intended by it? 

He should really just restrict his masturbatory efforts to times when Kylo wasn't home. He rolled over in his bed. That, he realized, might make him a touch more sexually frustrated than he already was... Kylo typically got home before him, electing to take early shifts so he could get to the gym before it got too crowded. Additionally, he disliked feeling restricted in his own home. There wasn't an answer he could see, which frustrated him more than anything else.

Eventually he had to forge out of his cave in search of dinner. Kylo, it seemed, had already made his own, in the form of, from the empty bag still on the counter, Trader Joe's mushroom risotto. 

"I'll clean the pot in a minute," Kylo called from the couch. He appeared to be watching a Ken Burns documentary about the Vietnam War as he scraped risotto from his bowl. Hux said nothing. Did he even have the energy to cook? Kylo had taken the coffee out of the paper shopping bag and placed it next to their coffee maker, but he hadn't seen fit to move the toilet roll to the hall cabinet, or put the bag away. Putting it out of his mind, Hux stooped to peer into the fridge, as if he didn't already know its contents, ignoring the Deadpool magnet giving him the double-guns from the freezer and reminding him of the article Kylo, for some reason, wanted him to see. 

"Ugh," he sighed, pulling out a microwave package of green beans and two eggs. He'd very much adopted the American convention of improving a meal by putting a fried egg on top of it. He sliced half an avocado, and put that on top as well. Cracked pepper. A dash of salt. A little of the butter he'd just bought. Ten minutes to a perfectly serviceable meal. He shoved the frying pan into the sink and carried his bowl into the living room, where Kylo budged over on the sofa to make room. Hux tucked himself against an armrest and Kylo nodded at his steamed-green-beans-with-avocado-and-fried-eggs salad. 

"Add some crumbled bacon and that'd be very... Venice Beach." 

"I'll remind you I'm not from this country. I don't know what that means." Hux speared some green beans along with some egg white. He allowed the yolk to break and run. 

"Venice is part of Los Angeles. Extremely gentrified. Full of cafes and boutique shoe stores." 

"Are you calling my microwaved green beans /bourgeois/?" 

Kylo grinned at him, askance. Hux almost expected a pun, or a snide witticism, but Kylo instead turned silently back to the documentary, pulled his feet up on the couch, his knees practically touching his chest. He began chewing at his nails and Hux looked over, a forkful of avocado poised en route to his mouth. 

"Could you not do that? It makes you sound like a hacksaw." 

"Yes, mother." 

"Did your mother often compare you to implements of carpentry?" Hux dabbled his beans in the runny yolk. He was playing with fire, here: mentioning Kylo's family could have disastrous results. He shifted slightly away on the couch, just in case. 

Kylo stared at the screen for a long moment. "No," he said. "Unlike you, she probably wouldn't have called me the sharpest tool in the shed." 

"Oh no," Hux groused, "now you're going to get that song stuck in my head. I suppose it's better than the other thing, but only just barely."

Kylo squinted at him. "What?"

"'All Star' by Smashmouth." 

Kylo continued to look at him skeptically. 

"You know: 'SomeBODY once told me the world was gonna roll me, I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed,'" Hux half-sang, aware of his inability to carry a tune. 

Kylo shook his head, baffled. 

"Oh come on, have you been living inside a Tupperware container your entire life? This song's been a meme for /years/." 

"Ah, the 'dank memes'," Kylo intoned, arching his eyebrows sarcastically. "You know I don't follow any of that."

"Neither do I," Hux lied, "which only serves to illustrate my point. Surely you should have caught on to that one via cultural osmosis." He placed his bowl to the side. "Though I shouldn't be surprised. After all, you're a complete Luddite. You print out articles you see online and /pass them around/. The only other person I know who does that is the Intellectual Property lawyer at work, and he's eighty-three." 

Kylo's expression darkened. "Forgive me for wanting to share anything with you." 

"Oh don't sulk. I should be the one who's annoyed. It's your fault I've had the Divinyls stuck in my head since I got home." This could be a bad idea, bringing the article up like this. He could be setting himself up for embarrassment. 

"Who's that?"

"Kylo, are you serious? You're the one who printed that article out and put it on the fridge." 

"Oh that," Kylo responds, turning his attention back to the television. "Can you believe someone got paid to write that? I figured you'd feel the same way."

Hux stared at Kylo just long enough that Kylo shifted his gaze once, then twice at him before turning to look, lips drawing into an impressive pout. 

"What is it /now/?" he asked, when Hux didn't say anything. 

"It, I just... all evening I've thought you were trying to tell me something with that article." 

"What could I possibly be trying to say?" His voice held an annoyed edge, and Hux knew he'd dug himself into a hole. Best to quietly climb out and cover over it. 

"I suppose it doesn't matter, now," Hux deflected. "Do you know, they don't teach anything about your Vietnam War in English schools..." He attempted to focus on the documentary but Kylo's eyes were on him. 

"No, now I'm curious. What'd you think I was saying with that stupid internet article?" 

Hux looked at him for a long moment. Kylo wasn't going to let this go. 

"I thought," he looked to the side, schooled his face. "That you were saying. In an incredibly roundabout fashion. That you. Could hear me wanking." 

Kylo's expression didn't change, and for whatever reason this prompted Hux to continue talking, as if he had precisely zero control over himself.

"I thought you were telling me to keep it down," he confessed, feeling the heat in his face rising. "But now here we are, talking about it, which might indeed be worse." 

Kylo coughed, and after a beat, Hux realized the man was trying to swallow a smile. 

"Wow," Kylo said, and there he gave up on trying to hide his grin, for he was perhaps not the nicest person to live with, either. "I bet that's been driving you crazy. I mean," he paused, and explosions sounded from the television, "I /can/ hear you jacking off, but it's not a big deal."

Hux froze. His legs and hands felt numb with panic. "You what?" 

Distantly he knew that he ought to play this off, simply shrug about it as much as Kylo was doing, but he simply could not cause himself to freak out any less. 

"That buzzing could really only be a vibrator or an electric shaver, and since you don't have a sink in your room, I naturally assume it's the former." Kylo scratched at the stubble on his chin. "I'll be honest though. It's kind-of a relief to hear it. It--"

Hux cut him off with a bark of surprise. "What!" He gripped nonsensically into the couch cushions, as if that would ground this conversation more in the realm of what he was used to. 

"Well it generally means you'll be in a better mood later. So. There's that."

Hux reeled. "You know," he said quietly, "that might be a symptom of PTSD: hyper-vigilance." 

Kylo pulled a face. "I don't want to talk about that."

"It's... relevant to what we're watching at least." Hux felt as if he was speaking automatically, without any direct input from his higher brain functions. It was horrible, knowing Kylo could hear him masturbating, knowing he'd be thinking about that the next time he had the urge, knowing he'd likely develop another anxiety over it. 

As they fell into silence, Kylo regarded him with a dark expression, ignoring the documentary completely. Hux stared blankly at the screen; helmeted figures trekked through the jungle before his eyes but he couldn't attach any comprehensive meaning to them. They simply moved across his vision, one blending into the last, the low drone of the narration becoming a roar in his ears. It shouldn't be a big deal like this. He knew that. He should be old enough, adult enough, to admit to the fact of his habits of self-pleasure without being pitched into shame and panic. He said nothing, felt his heart thump coldly in his chest.

"Hux," Kylo said. Hux didn't look at him. His lips felt rubbery. "You're having a panic attack."

That was worse. He'd allowed himself to appear weak in front of someone, over something so trivial, and now Kylo had seen those parts of himself he'd most wanted to keep hidden: the lizard-brain parts, his libido and his fear. He didn't know how to come back from that. He compounded it by remaining still, unable even to mitigate the damage. 

"I can tell because your jaw is clenched. I can see the muscle going. You're grinding your teeth," Kylo went on. Hux wanted to evaporate. "Are you even hearing me?" Kylo asked, and then his hand was on Hux's jaw, his thumb pressing into the tight muscle jumping there. He moved his thumb in deliberate, insistent circles until Hux's jaw relaxed. Hux blinked, locked eyes with Kylo. His expression was odd. Like he was about to say something he didn't want to.

"I should... I shouldn't have said that, before. I know you're kind-of uptight about that stuff."

Hux wondered if he ought to be insulted. Kylo didn't move his hand. His thumb had moved up to Hux's cheekbone, and was tracing it absently. Hux blinked at him. He sucked in a breath, let it out slowly, consciously let go of the tension in his shoulders. His jaw and temples hurt. 

"Should I move my hand?" Kylo asked. Hux didn't feel like he could trust his voice just yet. He shook his head slightly, felt Kylo's fingers muss his hair with the motion. They were falling into something improper for room mates, he could tell. He tilted his head slightly, leaning into Kylo's hand. After a long moment, Kylo's thumb tracing patterns along the ridge of Hux's cheek, Hux turned, just a little, just very slightly, so his lips met the meat of Kylo's palm. He didn't purse his lips, didn't press, only brushed against the calluses where Kylo's hands were rough from weight lifting, so it wasn't a kiss, except in all the ways that it was. He wasn't brave enough to look at Kylo as he did, but he heard the almost silent huff of a laugh. His hand slipped down the side of Hux's neck to his shoulder, then to his back, so he could pull Hux into an embrace. His body was intensely solid. Present. His hair smelled like pine. 

"Don't let me forget," Kylo murmured into Hux's ear, "I found an article about a community poll to decide a name for a new road gritter. I thought you'd like it."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for your patience.


End file.
